Greenland edges toward independence

Gary Park

For Petroleum News

After 300 years under colonial rule by Denmark, the people of Greenland have voted 76 percent in favor of greater autonomy, setting a tentative course for eventual independence.

The Nov. 26 vote easily ratified a self-rule agreement negotiated earlier this year with Denmark giving Greenland, which was granted semi-autonomy from its long-time ruler in 1979, rights to potential Arctic resources, as well as control over justice and police affairs and, to some degree, foreign affairs.

The pact will take effect on June 21, 2009.

Hans Jakob Helms, a political advisor to Lars Emil Johnsen, one of two Greenlanders in the Danish Parliament, said the ballot provided a “very clear answer” to the question of what the island’s 56,000 residents want for their future.

Of the 39,000 eligible voters, 70 percent participated in the ballot.

“The future of Greenland is being strengthened a lot with this,” he said. “This allows our people to decide themselves if, at a later date, they want independence,” although that could be several decades away.

Helms said the referendum was needed because “home rule has reached its limit and there’s a need for more room for self-government.”

The ballot also makes the Inuit language of Greenland the official language of the island, 90 percent of whose residents are Native-born Inuit.

As a result, Greenlanders will be recognized as a separate people under international law — a step that is seen as giving hope to other indigenous peoples in the Arctic region.

The hopes of eventual independence are tied to economic growth beyond Greenland’s dependence on fishing and hunting, with oil holding the key.

A number of the world’s largest oil companies — including Chevron, ExxonMobil, EnCana and Husky Energy — have been awarded exploration licenses to accelerate programs that started on a small scale in the 1970s, but have yet to strike oil in commercial quantities.

From 1999 to 2003, commercial geophysical companies acquired considerable new speculative seismic data offshore West Greenland in hopes of selling that information in connection with license rounds, according to the Greenland Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum.

The bureau’s Web site says the data has revealed the existence of “very large” sedimentary basins in the offshore.